Bloodlines of Passion and Speed
March 17, 2006 by marshall
I’m especially proud to have followed in my father’s footsteps. As an amateur and eventual semi-pro driver, my dad drove some incredible cars to many wins. Before his days as a driver, he was introduced to racing as a mechanic. His passion for cars was born from his youth spent in Arkansas–with little to do, terrorizing the dirt road surrounding Lee County near his birthplace of Marianna was the preferred form of mischief.
After leaving Marianna for Chicago, and four years spent in the Army, he returned to Chicago and found work in construction in the summer, and working on cars indoor during the harsh Midwest winters. From his growing skills fixing cars, the hot road racing scene was a natural attraction for him. It wasn’t long before he was working for the famous “Foreign Car Hospital,” and helping with their own racing efforts on the weekends.
The photo below is of my dad helping a customer to setup his Lotus Formula Junior (I know my Lotuses fairly well, but I must admit that the crumples and fading have me only guessing at the model and class—drop me a note if you know what it actually is) at Milwaukee in the early ’60’s. How cool is that!
I do take great pride in the fact that I’m carrying on my father’s passion, his name, and have indeed made a long career out of the sport that he only worked in until he was 23 or 24. He was always involved afterwards, but focused on owning and running a variety of European car garages. He raced all throughout my life, and despite a hiatus for most of the ’80’s, he went back through driver’s school with me when I entered for the first time in a Tiga Formula Ford we bought in a crate and built together. Again, how cool was that!
He was always a Lotus man, and loved anything he could find and build to an inch of its limits. Using the connections grown from his “Pruett’s Olde English Garage” shop in Burlingame, CA, my dad was always pressing customers and acquaintances for the whereabouts of a Lotus Cortina, Louts 23, or any British oddity that needed a lot of love before being track worthy.
With the home-built Lotus 23B seen below, my father and his partner Rick Sturiza shared driving the 23B in the San Francisco SCCA region. The two were in a constant battle with the newer, more powerful Lotuses of Tom Foster and Chuck Billington–I think my eternal support for an underdog came from watching my dad and Rick taking on and often beating the filthy rich Foster and Billington team. What a brilliant way to let a young child (I was 6 or 7 at the time) grow up!
As I tell most people that ask how I got into racing, one of my first memories on this planet happens to be of me at 3yrs old, sitting on the ground in the upper paddock at Sears Point (near the original Turn 2 bridge), helping my dad pick the bigger rocks that were stuck to the tires on his Lotus Cortina. Being involved, included, and in love with the sounds, smells, and images of racing from such a young age, it’s not a mistake that it has served as my most enduring passion.
I’ll continue to add more pictures of my dad as I have time, but until then, know that regardless of what I’ve accomplished in racing, my life as a motorsports professional was started by helping my dad at 3yrs old— my career is just a continuation of what Marshall Pruett Sr. started back in ’60’s.
